Talk:Beyond This Horizon

Nudism and Free Love

I'm reading this book right now. There is a passing mention of nudism; at the party at the beginning, the attractive girl swimming is "bare". I think there may be some indirect nods towards free love, too, if you read between the lines regarding this society's attitudes towards marriage. --Larry Hastings (talk) 05:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetic engineering

It has been a while since I've read this book, but I'm pretty sure there was no genetic engineering in Hamilton line. The method described in the book is in fact closer to eugenics (selective breeding), although that is not entirely accurate either. As far as I remember the individual is free to choose a mate and when they decide to procreate the professionals choose the most promising gametes for that particular pair. Mostly this means eliminating genetic disorders and disadvanteges and leaving beneficial, neutral and/or unknown genetic material out of consideration. --Khokkanen (talk) 19:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Waterbed

The article says this book anticipated the waterbed. The first line of the waterbed article says it was patented in 1971. Drxenocide (talk) 17:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Chromosomes

Consistently throughout the novel Heinlein states humans have 48 chromosomes. In fact we have 46. Geo Swan (talk) 06:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

According to Mark Ridley's THE GENOME, this was a miscount from the early days of research, when scientists were dealing with fuzzy images of cells. It was later corrected by better optics, but obviously after the novel was written. 50.180.19.238 (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Literary significance and criticism

I've gutted this section and renamed it Reception as it was largely unsourced. I've copied it here in case anyone thinks there is anything salvageable. TwoTwoHello (talk) 10:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

In the first two decades of his writing career, Heinlein wrote on average one novel every year, nearly all intended for young adult readers. Beyond This Horizon was his second published novel, and the last adult novel he was to write for some years. The recent publication of his lost first novel, For Us, the Living, reveals that Beyond This Horizon is largely a second attempt to treat most of its ideas. For Us, the Living consists largely of thinly-fictionalized lectures on social credit (a movement that Heinlein later hid his involvement in), as well as free love, and criticism of religious fundamentalism. From the first page of Beyond This Horizon, Heinlein shows a revolutionized mastery of storytelling applied to the same materials. The title of the first chapter is "All of them should have been very happy —," and it introduces the utopia by the expedient of the protagonist's inexplicable dissatisfaction with it.

Eugenics is shown as the wave of the future, and yet it is a eugenics that explicitly rejects racism, and can be reconciled with Heinlein's strongly held belief in cultural relativism. Scientific progress is satirized as often as it is glorified, and Heinlein displays his disdain for positivism, as his protagonist convinces the society's leaders to plow vast amounts of money into research on topics such as telepathy and the immortality of the soul.

One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearms. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book which is repeated throughout Heinlein's work is, "An armed society is a polite society," is very popular with those who support the personal right to keep and bear arms.

Nudism and free love, which had been prominently featured in For Us, the Living, are absent from this story. Nudism would not appear again in Heinlein's work until 1957's The Door Into Summer; free love next made an appearance in 1961, in Stranger in a Strange Land.

"Social credit" got a bad reputation a few years after the novel when its most famous proponent, Ezra Pound, was accused of collaborating with Mussolini's Fascists during World War II. Too bad gun-related machismo hasn't been discredited the same way. 50.180.19.238 (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

In "Door into Summer" the hero accidentally transports himself into a nudist colony while using a time machine. There is no indication that nudism is a regular part of society in that novel. 50.180.19.238 (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Beyond This Horizon/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

One of the major themes of the novel is re-incarnation, telepathy, and the immortality of the soul. Most of the second half of the book concerns the main character's son, who is the re-incarnation of a government official who dies shortly before the son's birth. The article could be improved if this were more extensively discussed.

Last edited at 20:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 09:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)